Preface: This guide is not gospel. This is almost certainly not the best advice you can get, and if you already know what you're doing and this guide says otherwise, listen to yourself. I am literally just writing this because I recently won with Sun Paladin and the only other guide for it is from 1.10. With that out of the way, let's begin.

The Sun Paladin, well built, is tankier than a Sherman. Following this guide, you'll be able to receive massive amounts of damage without dying, heal yourself up from just about anything, and even when the battle gets too instense, you'll have the capability of recovering enough to fight again within a dozen turns. Best of all, by the time you're level 12 you'll ahve a permenant safety net of resurrection.

This build specifically is for using shields and all your positive energy on sustains-past the early game, you will never touch an ability that actually consumes positive energy.

Race

Most of this is conjecture. I have only played Sun Paladin as a Ghoul and would highly recomend it, but I'll do my best to talk about other races.

Cornac: 4/10 The category point will come in handy for an extra inscription, but it's not really needed. The lower life rating hurts this build. Not a bad choice, but nothing much good here either.

Higher: 5/10 A better choice than Cornacs, but still not especially good. The stat bonuses are negligible, so their only benefits are slightly improved life rating and racials. Only Gift of the Highborn is going to be that useful, and since you won't be pumping Willpower, it's not that powerful. However, an instant regen is nothing to throw away. Overseer of Nations is pointless, since you'll be in melee. Born Into Magic gives nice spell save, but the resistance and damage bonus aren't that important. Highborn's Bloom will really not be needed. In my playthrough, I ran out of Stamina once, and that was against Linaniil.

Shalore: 3/10 Bad life rating and mediocre racials for this build. Grace of the Eternals won't be that much use, as your talent use is dictated mostly by cooldowns. Magic of the Eternals gives crit boosts, which never hurt, but Secrets of the Eternal is basically useless. Timeless is never a bad ability, but not needed here and not worth the missing life.

Thalore: 6/10 Good life, good starting stats, good racials. Wrath of the Woods is useful in a pinch for extra all resist in addition to a Wild Infusion, Unshackled will save you from stuns and confusion, and Guardian of the Wood gives passive all resist. All worth putting points in. Nature's Pride isn't bad, but you don't really need meatshields.

Doomelf: No freaking idea. At all. If someone plays a Doomelf Sun Paladin, let me know how it was.

Halfing: 8/10 Great life and useful racials. Luck of the Little Folk is a great tool for upping your damage when you need to kill something fast(er), Militant Mind will be helpful since you will be surrounded by crowds, and Indomitable is a fantastic status manager. Duck and Dodge, while helpful defensively, won't be that useful though.

Dwarve: 9/10 Like Halflings, but with better racials. Resilience of the Dwarves adds to your already impressive armor and saves, Stoneskin is yet more armor, Power is Money will add up with Resilience to make you basically immune to Physical and Magic debuffs for a little bit, and Stone Walking is an extra escape option. Can't go wrong with a Dwarf.

Ghoul: 10/10 Total life rating of 16. You will be swimming in hit points. It also adds great stat buffs and damage limitation through Ghoul, great mobility through Ghoulish Leap, and a damage dealer/regen effect/status removal that lasts for 15 turns through Retch. Gnaw isn't a bad extra attack, but not worth the generics. In addition, the main penalty of Ghouls, -20% global speed, is not that important for Sun Paladins, and the undead inability to use Infusions is made up with the racials.

Skeleton: 7/10 Good life, good racials, but huge XP penalty and can't use Infusions. Strength from Skeleton helps, and while Dexterity helps, it isn't needed. Bone Armour is a good shield, but without pumping Dexterity it'll be outclassed by runes or Barrier. Useful all the same. Resilient Bones is pointless with Providence, and Re-Assemble is a useful heal, but you already have plenty.

Yeek: 2/10 I love these little furballs, but... They suck as Sun Paladins. Horrible, horrible life, and the only useful skill is Unity. The immunities and saves are very helpful, but global speed isn't needed, you don't have the Willpower to make Dominant Will stick, and the summons aren't very helpful.

Stats

Strength=Magic>Cunning=Dexterity>Willpower>Constitution

Strength and Magic must be kept high, Dexterity or Cunning after those two are maxed is your choice.

Early on, more points should go into Magic for using skills, but once you've got a lot of abilities start putting more into Strength.

Class Talents

Combat

Weapon of Light: This talent is beautiful. Because nearly all your attacks are weapon based, this adds a lot of light damage to everything you do, and the defensive bonuses from powering up damage shields lets you make any attack operate as just a little bit of defense too.5/5

Wave of Power: Damn useful when you get it, but this build doesn't use positive energy for anything other than Shield of Light. An important note is that this is a melee hit and applies any melee effects that wouldn't normally occur five squares away.1/5

Weapon of Wrath: More weapon damage? Yes please. This talent, just like Weapon of Light, will seriously buff your damage once a fight gets going. the Martydom effect works great with your immense HP pool, as does the extra damage based on lost life. Once you get Weapon of Wrath, it's worth your time to save Shielding effects for part way through a fight, once you've taken a few hits and can gain extra damage.5/5

Second Life: YES. YES YES YES. This ability is your safety net. Get it as soon as possible, max it as soon as possible, and never let it drop. Not only is this basically an extra 40% HP at level 5, it's a perfect warning system. If you ever see this sustain go down, run immediately. This includes if it gets taken down through a sustain removing effect, unless there's a good chance you'll be teleporting into more damage.5/5 Immediately

Sun

Sun Ray: Nice bit of extra damage, one of your longer ranged abilities. Overall not very useful on this build except in conjuction with Sun's Vengeance.1/5

Path of the Sun: Fantastic mobility tool. Deals some damage, but not enough to be worth more than taking out a Bone Shield. However, this creates a five turn road for you that you can walk on indefinitely. Great for scouting, clsoing, running, anything involving movement. Rnage increases with talent level and maxes at 9, but hits 8 at level 3. Not worth the extra two points to get 9.3/5

Sun's Vengeance: A passive ability, useful but not above many other abilities. Not worth investing in till late game. Once you get it, watch your status buffs carefully. When you see Sun's Vengeance appear on it, make sure to use your Sun Ray for a bit of extra damage and shielding, as it won't cost anything.5/5 eventually

Suncloak: An absolutely godly ability that this build cares very little for. Since very few spells are used by this build, the spell bonuses are mostly irrelevant. The main reason to get Suncloak is to get is to drop the maximum amount of damage you can take, however, if you play as a Ghoul you already have this effect passively.0/5 for Ghouls, X/5 for other races

Combat Veteran

Since this is a widely used tree, I won't bother discussing each skill. Just don't invest in it early, consider it later on when you have spare class points, and never put anything into Unending Frenzy. The only reward there is unending misery from wasting valuable class points.Quick Recovery 1/5, 0/5 if not investing futher down the treeFast Metabolism X/5Spell Shield X/5Unending Frenzy 0/5

Shield Offense

Same as Combat Veteran-widely used tree, minor discussion. Shield Slam will be very useful for the block and Assault does great damage.Shield Pummel X/5Riposte 1/5Shield Slam 1/5Assualt 5/5

Two-Handed Assualt

This is a shield based build. Do not invest in this tree.

Crusader

Reread Two-Handed Assault.

Guardian

Shield of Light: Another one of those sustains you'll learn to love so much. Shield of Light is a damage buff, a survivability buff, and a place to finally spend all that positive energy you've been ignoring up till now. This will turn 2 positive energy into healing every time you get hit and add shield bashes to an attack once per turn. Once this is active, you can treat every positive energy gaining ability as also having a healing component from this sustain.In addition, so long as you keep positive energy up, Shield of Light will completely negate and add additional healing over any DoT. The base healing is capable of crits, so with a high spell crit you can expect your healing to be significantly higher than the indicated amount. If you have a dangerous DoT effect and are low on positive energy, activate any generator ability to effectively cure it. In addition, if your only debuffs are DoT, don't waste a cure if you have Shield of Light up.5/5

Brandish: You get this after Shield of Light, and Shield of light is the cut off point for when you stop using any positive energy for anyhting except Shield of Light. I did not use this ability once my entire game.1/5

Retribution: More sustains! This is a fantastic damage shield, and since it lets half damage through, it synergizes with Shield of Light and any other regen effects by letting them help deal with damage, making it more powerful than a true damage shield. In addition, it deals massive damage when it does finally go down and in a good radius to boot. Against ordinary foes, this ability will literally let you sit there and do nothing until they finally break your shield and die.5/5

Crusade: Your only main attack outside of Shield Offense. It increases your positive energy, so it adds healing from Shield of Light, does good damage, and lowers cooldowns and heals a debuff. Save this ability for when you need it-the cooldown isn't much, but it's much better to trade lower damage output to gain a debuff removal when you really need it. Never use Crusade when less than 3 talents are on cooldown unless you absolutely have to remove a debuff and have no other abilities that can do it ready.5/5

Radiance

Radiance: A nice passive. Gives you light radius and blindness immunity. The main benefit comes from later abilities.5/5

Illumination: Reduces stealth and defense. Great buff to Radiance, especially since one of your status removals relies on hitting an enemy.5/5

Searing Sight: Another sustain. I actually thought it was an active ability at first and didn't use it, but it's extra damage and dazing. Defnitely a useful sustain to have, espeically combined with the massive radius of Radiance. Since dazing pins enemies in place, it can help you close with an enemy while your mobility is on cooldown, as well removing Bone Shields. Do note the damage is low, so one point wondering it isn't bad, but at the end you've got enough class points to toss wherever and here's not a bad spot.1-X/5

Judgement: Uses positive energy and shirnks your Radiance, and therefore Searing Sight and Illumination, for five turns. Not worth it.0/5

Combat Techniques

Widely used tree, little discussion. I personally did not unlock this tree at all. Rush is a great mobility tool, but you're probably better off spending a category point on a Movement Infusion for that purpose. Precise Strikes and Perfect Strike are helpful but unneeded, and Blinding Speed isn't very useful since you have so few abilities worth using.Potentially not worth unlocking.Rush X/5Precise Strikes 0/5 or X/5 on preferencePerfect Strike 0/5 or X/5 on preferenceBlinding Speed 0/5

Generic Skills

Chants

Chant of Fortitude: The Chant. This is the Chant I used the entire game. Saves and max life, both incredibly useful. In addition, the melee retaliation is nice for a tanky build like this.5/5

Chant of Fortress: You will be in melee range. While it might save you from out of vision one shotting, it won't help you close with that enemy and deal with them up close. Fortitude will likely be able to help just as much.0/5, 1/5 if going for Resistance

Chant of Resistance: Another solid choice, I preferred the status mitigation and Weapon of Wrath synergy provided by Fortitude, but all resist is never a bad thing.0/5 or 5/5

Chant of Light: No. Extra damage is nice, but this build is about surviving, not dealing out damage. Use a massively powerful defensive tool instead of spreading yourself thin.0/5

Light

Healing Light: A powerful heal. Takes a turn, but usually heals for more damage than you take, so net gain. Plus you gain positive energy, so Shield of Light will turn that into even more healing over time.5/5

Bathe in Light: Since you're a melee class, this is the least useful of the Light tree. As such, it gets relegated to autocast duties. Put in on autocast when enemies aren't around and start every fight with a full tank for Shield of Light.1/5

Barrier: A powerful shield. Takes a turn, but usually survives long enough for you to attack. Stacks well with Weapon of Light-use Barrier to survive a turn, then power the shield up with an Assault. Also gains positive energy for Shield of Light.5/5

Providence: Hell yeah. One of the best status removers in the game. Also gives good regen and positive energy. If you're about to go into a dangerous fight, consider popping this ahead of time.5/5

Teleportation Rune: A must have. This is your main escape tool-when you get low on health or if you see Second Life go down, pop this and live another day.

Shielding Rune: Another must have. This combined with Weapon of Light can easily give you an extra two or three turns of survival in a dangerous situation.

Heat Beam, Biting Gale, Acid Wave: I'd recomend one of each by the end game. These will let you instantly cure a specific status condition (barring having multiples of the same category) and do a little damage. Excellent tools to have on hand.

All other runes: Not worth it. Trade it for one of the ones above.

Infusions

Regeneration: Get a Shielding Rune instead for the Weapon of Light synergy. You have enough defenses that you should focus most turns on offense. When you need to spend a turn on defense, a regen effect will not be enough to save you.

Wild: If you aren't undead, get these instead of status cure attack runes. A mental/physical early on, but one of each single type later game. These are better since they can be used on the same turn as one another and give resist all.

Healing: If there's a powerful enough one, go ahead and use it. But there won't be. There never is.

Movement: A great mobility tool. If you have enough of one save or not very much trouble with a certain category of status effects, this will see you into and out of fights. Very good choice on this build for adding mobility.

Heroism: Nothing special about this class and Heroism. The stat buff is nice, but not the reason to use it. Use Heroism Infusions only for the negative life effect, and use that only after Second Life has gone down. Second Life triggers when you go into negative HP, so activating a Heroism Infusion while it's active will cripple its use. If you're in a situation dangerous enough that you think you might need Heroism and Second Life in one turn, run.

All other infusions: Get something from the above list instead.

Category Points and Prodigies

Categories

The level 10 category point should go Guardian. Too many core abilities are in that tree to let it wait. After that, get inscription slots until you feel like you need more places to put class points, then get Radiance.

Prodigies

Strength

Irresistible Sun-This is a fantastic damage and crowd tool. Deals massive damage to everyone around and draws them in to help with your mobility issues. This should be your first prodigy, no questions asked.

Flexible Combat-A little extra damage. Not bad, but better choices.

Constitution

Corrupted Shell-Great defensive boosts if you have the Constitution for it, and with a Ghoul you probably will. I didn't have the choice in my play through since I killed Zigur and the Corrupter, but she's worth leaving alive for Shell.

Magic

Arcane Might-You've got great Magic and use weapons. This one is a no brainer to up your damage output. Worth it for your second prodigy.

Cauterize-A layer of back up before Second Life. Synergizes well with it, since Second Life should let you live long enough to use Cauterize again.

Spectral Shield-You have two blocks, one from your shield and one from Shield Smash, so it's a great way to buy some breathing room. If you do get this prodigy, remove Shield Slam from your regular offensive rotation. It's a lot more useful now as a defensive tool.

Temporal Form-The first prodigy I got in my play through, with Irresistible Sun second. Not a bad choice if you're having trouble with status and the immunites would help or you happen to have a ton of temporal damage gear lying around, but probably not worth it. Only on the list because I personally played with it.

Strategy

As you go through the game, put everything you get in sustains. Put all sustains on autocast when no enemies are around, and before you go into any dangerous fight make sure they're all up. In addition, before level 10 you'll have a few levels where you don't have any sustains to put points in. Save or float these points, since you'll want to level Shield of Light and Second Life immediately. Once you hit level 12, don't put points in anything else until you've maxed Second Life (excepting any points you've saved up and therefore can't spend on Second Life). In addition, do not act as if you ahve Second Life. Pretend it isn't there and you'll find you survive a lot more.

Once you get all your Shield Offense skills and Crusade, your strategy will be the same till the end game. Close with an enemy using Path of the Sun or a similar talent, use Assault, Shield Slam, bump attack if they got counterstrike and Shield Pummel if they didn't, Shield Pummel if you used a bump, and then Crusade only if they can't deal nasty status effects or you have Providence on. If you have Sun's Vengeance, use that when it comes up.

For survival, you have a wealth of defensive skills. The entire Light tree and anything else you aquire will give you all the options you need anytime you're in danger. Providence is your best friend, regen and status removal. And don't be afraid to run-you might be a Leman Russ, but sometimes you run into a Baneblade.

Anything Else

Space saved for when someone points out anything I missed.

In addition, please let me know anything I could do better. I've only beaten the game once with a Sun Paladin, so I know this isn't the best guide.

And just one last reminder, this guide is not gospel. I am far from the best player, so make intellgient decisions based on what you find in your game and not just what I say. ToME, like any Roguelike, has a bunch of random elements that could make deviating from this guide a much better choice.

Hope this helps.

_________________I'm not crying. I'm offering a sacrifice to DarkGod in hopes he'll show favor to me.

It hasn't worked yet.

Last edited by Red on Wed Dec 31, 2014 9:39 am, edited 5 times in total.

looks very solid, interesting choice to skip all resource expenders, but it seems to have worked well.

i happen to have won with a sun paladin very recently as well, granted it was a pretty different build, but i have a few thoughts.

Searing light: i maxed this too, but by the end of the game, the dmg was absolutely pitiful, the daze is nice, but im not sure how much it helps in practice, since it will be removed by the next tick of the ability

Judgement: like you i picked irresistible sun, but with this spell i might as well not have, it destroys entire packs in 1 button and heals you to full hp, very strong if you can spare the positive energy, but for this build i can understand not picking it, something to consider though.

for prodigies, i would also consider corrupted shell (was my 1st prodigy), since it has great defensive stats

Will add Corrupted Shell. I didn't actually have the choice since I murder everything that comes across my path, so I sided with the Grand Corrupter, killed Zigur, then killed the Corrupter.

And honestly, by the time I was hitting the late game I had no idea whatsoever where to put class points. I ended up with the Combat Veteran tree mostly full since I didn't think there was anywhere better. So damage might be low, daze might not be the most useful, but it's better than nothing. And, of course, more Bone Shields destroying can't hurt.

_________________I'm not crying. I'm offering a sacrifice to DarkGod in hopes he'll show favor to me.

Interesting. Key differences on my run were that I went 1/4/1/1 on Shield Offense, invested 5 in Brandish, never bothered with Radiance until the end (and I was like... 4/1/0/0 when I fought Elandar and Argoniel), and I rolled with a 1 in Providence.

I think your route would be a lot more convenient for sure, but I think that I was able to get away with my skill choices means Sun Paladin is sitting very pretty as a Sword-and-Boarder.

I would seriously reconsider unlocking Radiance instead of Combat Techniques if you're not a ghoul. Even delaying Rush until 20 is painful without Ghoulish Leap. Doing without it entirely I wouldn't even consider. Only Cornacs have the extra cat point for three unlocks and they need to unlock something generic to sink their points into.

There are a bunch of minor optimizations available as well. All the weapon talents scale damage poorly with talent points so I would consider anything without a rider a 1 point wonder and some with riders (eg. almost anything you stun with shield pummel will die before it recovers and stun chance is based on accuracy not talent level). Lord Karasuman mentioned leveling up Riposte. Going from 2 ripostes per block to 3 is big, and probably a bigger impact on Assault than maxing it. With Riposte at 1 you'll double the shield bash and either the shield of light attack or the first weapon autocrit. With Riposte at 4 you'll also double the first weapon autocrit or both if not using Shield of Light. Other stuff is debatable I suppose, but relative value within Shield Offense is well studied because it's on so many varied classes.

_________________Digitochracyn. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.

I'm trying a cornac 2 handed staff build with radiance. If I can get it to work I can maybe help put together a more comprehensive guide. It probably depends on if weapon of light counts as a proc for staff accuracy overflow. Accuracy overflow seems to be the primary long term benefit of Radiance.

I'm pretty sure 2 handed builds are inferior to sword and board, though. Guardian has 2 sustains, a drain, and a generator. Crusader has 1 sustain, 2 drains, and a generator and the drains are individually only slightly smaller while the generator is far smaller. The two handed techniques use a lot more stamina than the shield techniques, though fatigue will be lower.

Another build to look at is combat techniques and radiance 2 handed with some combat veteran investment to compensate for all attacks using stamina. That would entirely ignore energy consuming actives apart from wave of power and judgement. I would do that as a greatsword using accuracy/crit stacking shalore I think to best turn illumination's defense reduction into damage.

addendum:Well, the staff paladin isn't something I can recommend. It's not terrible, but it needs somewhat atypical staves. Weapon of Light isn't a proc as far as the stave accuracy bonus is concerned. Crusader, on the other hand, is better than I expected. Radiance isn't, though. It's a great convenience for melting brittle clear oozes, but if it's meh with a magic primary build stacking +light it's pretty darn meh.

_________________Digitochracyn. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.

I just finished a game on normal with a Dwarven Sun Paladin based around this build. My thoughts:

1: I didn't feel the need to unlock a category for Rush as I made a conscious effort to collect mobility items as the game progressed. Between the Planar Beacon, a cape of the voidwalker, Boots of the Hunter, and Path of the Sun, I didn't feel that I had significant mobility issues. I eventually dumped the cape for a randart with 40% slow on hit.

2: I found Barrier to be near worthless by the time I got to the East. If I was taking enough damage that a good regeneration rune and Healing Light wasn't enough, Barrier would generally go down the same turn it was put up. If the 300ish points of barrier is going to be the deciding factor after 1.5K+ health, 300+ heal, and 500ish regen infusion, you were cutting it too close to begin with. I actually liked Bathe in Light for an emergency breather more than Barrier. A 1/5 Bathe in light provides about 2/3rds as much damage mitigation as a 5/5 Barrier. At a high level w/o heal mod, Bathe in Light is doing 70+ healing and 50+ shielding per turn for the next 7 turns, plus any left over shield persists for 2 turns after it's over. That's a barrier worth of damage every 3 turns. That's 840 points of damage mitigation for long enough that something of value is probably going to come off of cooldown. Sure, you are healing and shielding your opponent (if close), but if you are taking damage that is overwhelming this build, you probably should practicing the fine art of Running Away, not going for the kill. And if you are stacking heal mod? Forget Barrier.

If anything, I would switch the roles, put Barrier on autocast when nothing is around (Same positive energy gain, faster cooldown) and Bathe in Light on autocast on enemy sighting. At the start of combat, Barrier will either be up (75% of the time) and being buffed by Bathe in Light or will be available within 3 turns. If the enemy is caught within the area of effect of Bathe in Light, your primary offensive techniques should only be marginally impacted by the additional healing/shielding.

3: I had serious crowd control issues which really showed in orc ambushes and the orc prides. Perhaps instead of investing in barrier, get hexes from Mark of the Spellblaze. (If you haven't unlocked Combat Techniques, you should have a spare cat point) The hexes look like they would sync well with existing sustains, like Empathic with the Martyr effect of Wrath, Pacification with the dazing of the Radiance/Searing Sight combo. 3/4 of the hexes scale with spellpower which should already be high with this build. I haven't actually tried this, but it looks promising on paper.

4: Might want to invest a point in a couple of two-handed techniques for the occasional two-hander which serves a specific purpose. I had an artifact two-handed weapon that gave 'treat as demon' which I would switch to if I was fearscaped. It would have been nice to be able to do more than bump attack with it.

1) That's locking up a lot of your items on mobility. You may not even find those egos. The whole Combat Techniques tree is really strong now that overflow accuracy is converted into other things and the best builds are going to 5 /5/1/5 or 5/1/5/5 or 5/5/5/5 it.

2) It's also important to have a shield up for Weapon of Light to boost. Barrier crits. If it says 300 it should usually be providing at least 450 and probably more like 600. A crit multiplier of around 200% is not that hard to get. Bathe in Light also crits so it does more than the tooltip says, but it shields and heals anyone nearby for just as much as it shields and heals you. On an Anorthil that's no problem: they want to fight at range and one of the circles will push people away. On a Sun Paladin that's a great big problem.

3) I haven't looked at hexes in detail, but form what I've heard they're not very good. They're not worth it for the class that actually starts with them and they're probably not worth it for you. You're also forgoing Combat Techniques unless you're doing this as a Cornac. Just don't do the Sludge Nest optional dungeon and you'll be just fine. If you're having trouble with crowds, though, it's probably because you're healing and shielding them with Bathe in Light. Don't do that.

4) Switching weapon handedness sets takes off important sustains from the Guardian or Crusader trees. It's not worth it. There's no two handed weapon worth turning off Shield of Light and Retribution. Between them those two basically negate all DoTs and Shield of Light alone will counter most. Since there's no other situational effect exclusive to two handed weapons there's no reason to switch. There's nothing similar exclusive to one handed weapons or shields, but if there were it probably wouldn't be worth turning off Righteous Strength.

_________________Digitochracyn. 1. technocracy. 2. government by the numbers. 3. rule by people with the longest fingers.

1) That's locking up a lot of your items on mobility. You may not even find those egos. The whole Combat Techniques tree is really strong now that overflow accuracy is converted into other things and the best builds are going to 5 /5/1/5 or 5/1/5/5 or 5/5/5/5 it.

The original suggestion was to unlock a category for rush early. The point was that if the player is paying attention, the player ought find plenty of mobility items. Those items weren’t all the items that I had found, just the ones I was using around end game. Three mobility items probably was overkill. I rarely used the cape due to it's lack of accuracy and sharing a cooldown with the gloves of dispersion. I didn't miss it after I dumped it for the randart. One mobility item can make up for Rush.

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2) It's also important to have a shield up for Weapon of Light to boost.

If Barrier is only lasting a turn, Weapon of Light isn’t going to do anything for it.

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Barrier crits. If it says 300 it should usually be providing at least 450 and probably more like 600. A crit multiplier of around 200% is not that hard to get. Bathe in Light also crits so it does more than the tooltip says, but it shields and heals anyone nearby for just as much as it shields and heals you. On an Anorthil that's no problem: they want to fight at range and one of the circles will push people away. On a Sun Paladin that's a great big problem.

*If* Barrier crits. Which means Barrier is really only useful on crit, and even then it will be for less than Bathe in Light, and much less then a Bathe in Light crit. I am not worried so much about healing and shielding the enemy because a point of mitigation for the enemy is a lot less valuable than a point of mitigation for the player, as damage output is heavily lopsided in the player’s favor. At endgame, my techniques were dealing out about 1,500 a shot, so 100 points of mitigation against that doesn’t mean much. If I am taking 300 a shot, 100 points of mitigation mean a whole bunch more to me. That is 7% mitigation vs. 33% mitigation. I haven’t tested it, but I expect that heal mod impacts me unilaterally. As you can only effectively damage one target at a time with this build, the healing on other targets doesn’t mean much as they should be at or near full health. There is another downside to Barrier: it can be dispelled. So, something that is guaranteed to help with a small downside, or something that *might* help with no downside?

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3) I haven't looked at hexes in detail, but form what I've heard they're not very good. They're not worth it for the class that actually starts with them and they're probably not worth it for you. You're also forgoing Combat Techniques unless you're doing this as a Cornac. Just don't do the Sludge Nest optional dungeon and you'll be just fine. If you're having trouble with crowds, though, it's probably because you're healing and shielding them with Bathe in Light. Don't do that.

The original build wasn’t big on combat techniques, and this looked like a possible alternative. As I noted, I haven’t tried it, but some of them look promising, especially domination and pacification as those are crowd control. Mobility (if not using Ghoul) and crowd control are this build’s big weak spots, and this might address one of them.

I didn’t start experimenting with Bathe in Light until Barrier started being useless, which was when I was already having trouble with crowds of Orc.

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4) Switching weapon handedness sets takes off important sustains from the Guardian or Crusader trees. It's not worth it. There's no two handed weapon worth turning off Shield of Light and Retribution. Between them those two basically negate all DoTs and Shield of Light alone will counter most. Since there's no other situational effect exclusive to two handed weapons there's no reason to switch. There's nothing similar exclusive to one handed weapons or shields, but if there were it probably wouldn't be worth turning off Righteous Strength.

You are using the opposite side of the same argument you used in 1. Either you can count on finding what you need, or you can't. At end game, Retribution generally would go down in a couple hits. It only lasted a bit longer than barrier. Shield of Light healing is weak. It is best for the extra attack. I gladly gave the bonuses up to turn Fearscape DoT damage into healing.

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